You thought the typical virus was the only threat to your PC? Think again, because you now have to contend with the malware menace. Malware is a common threat to computers these days and has in fact become more widespread than your regular virus. Essentially, malware is ‘malicious software’ designed to damage your PC or spy on your activities. Under the broad heading of malware, you have:

• Adware: This hides on your PC and shows pop ups containing ads for various products.

• Virus: A virus is typically created to hide within executable software and become active when the host software is activated. It will self-replicate and place copies of itself in other software or documents, causing immense damage to your PC.

• Worm: A worm will also self-replicate but can execute itself without a host application. It will then send multiple copies of itself to other computers via the Internet.

• Trojan Horses: Vividly named, Trojan horses conceal their true identity disguised as or hiding inside legitimate software. They usually enter your PC as part of free software downloaded from the Internet.

• Spyware: Spyware monitors and records all keyboard actions, Internet activity and personal information such as credit card details and passwords, sending them to the spyware-maker using email.

PC infection basics

• If you receive email from unknown senders, don’t open it, period. For the weaker willed, make sure you get your anti virus software to scan it before opening it.

• Don’t spend too much time browsing websites that seem suspect in some way, because the malware can be hidden as code within the web page.

• If you are a regular user of file sharing software to share illegal music, software and video, you are in a high-risk group. Plenty of files on peer-to-peer networks have malware hidden within them.

• Malware also infects your PC via pop-ups or IP pop-ups. The latter are so called because they can go straight to your computer’s IP address bypassing pop-up blockers. You can spot IP pop-ups fairly easily, because they are usually camouflaged as Windows error messages that ask you to ‘click here’ to sort out the error. DO NOT click, because that executes the malware.

• Instant messaging software can be a source of infection too. Surprised? Well, infection usually occurs when sharing files, so be careful whom you share with.

Prevention better than cure

• To begin with, you never want to install software from questionable sources, as this could actually be malware-in-disguise! We recommend AVG Anti-Virus, an excellent free scanner, and XoftSpy (direct download link) to remove Adware, Spyware and Malware. Whichever software you use, make sure you update it regularly, because outdated anti virus software is useless.

• A firewall is another complete must. Both Windows XP and Vista have built-in firewalls, or we can recommend Zone Alarm, an excellent full-featured firewall that is free for personal use.

• Use Windows Update regularly to know about the latest critical updates. There are frequent security holes in Windows, which Microsoft has patches for.

If after all this, you still detect malware on your PC, don’t panic. With any decent quality Internet securities software, removing malware is easy. Just set the software up and it will remove the offender automatically.